elvindeath:All the same hacks expressing shock at "conservative" justices supporting the rights of the individual ought to be in total outrage at the "liberal" administration's position that they can drone strike an American citizen without warrant, search or trial.

Repeat after me:Judicial.Legislative.Executive.

Here's a helpful infographic:

/Protip: 'Constitution' is a document, not a person; these are not all run by the same guy//Maybe if the GOP hadn't made 'Conservative' synonymous with 'Bigoted Idiot' more people would be in 'total outrage' abut drone strikes///BTW, you're only half right that they could target 'inside the U.S.' and you should be more worried that your local Police Department wants drones than the Feds possibly using them against domestic terrorism

Newsflash, folks ... both Scalia and Thomas are generally very critical of the government attempting to expand it's powers, especially when it comes to property rights and infringing on individual freedoms. The alignment of the Justices is not surprising at all. All the same hacks expressing shock at "conservative" justices supporting the rights of the individual ought to be in total outrage at the "liberal" administration's position that they can drone strike an American citizen without warrant, search or trial.

AverageAmericanGuy:Mad_Radhu: AverageAmericanGuy: Alito also said that the court's ruling stretches expectations of privacy too far.

"A reasonable person understands that odors emanating from a house may be detected from locations that are open to the public, and a reasonable person will not count on the strength of those odors remaining within the range that, while detectable by a dog, cannot be smelled by a human."

Go fark yourself, Alito.

And libs, this is the kind of judge that is installed by a Democrat President. These guys hold this seat for life.

Obama and his damn time machine again, traveling back to 2006 to nominate Alito.

I never said Obama nominated Alito. Nor did I say that a Democrat did.

AverageAmericanGuy:Alito also said that the court's ruling stretches expectations of privacy too far.

"A reasonable person understands that odors emanating from a house may be detected from locations that are open to the public, and a reasonable person will not count on the strength of those odors remaining within the range that, while detectable by a dog, cannot be smelled by a human."

Go fark yourself, Alito.

And libs, this is the kind of judge that is installed by a Democrat President. These guys hold this seat for life.

AverageAmericanGuy:And libs, this is the kind of judge that is installed by a Democrat President.

Yeah, you really should not be throwing those stones, Mr. glass-house owner.

Scalia: installed by Reagan, worst SC judge I've seen in my lifetime.Thomas: installed by George HW Bush, complete waste of space. Worked for Monsanto corporation for years, but did not recuse himself on Monsanto-related cases.

I completely agree with the ruling and I am happy they came to rule as they did. Any search of a person, vehicle or private home should require the consent of the person or warrant granted only with strong evidence supporting the need for such a search. I know this hinders law enforcement, but I am will to give up a little safety in order to keep my freedom.

Corvus:But Scalia is a big private property conservative and feels government can't take or interfere with your private property like your money, land, wife or slaves.

How is that inconsistent with the opinion?

Seems to me, a big private property conservative who feels government can't interfere with your private property, like your land, wouldn't be too keen on giving the government the power to remotely sense what is going on inside your home.

Wendy's Chili:It's rare but not unheard of for Scalia to rule against law enforcement. Thomas, on the other hand, was once on the losing side of a 8-1 decision in which he approved of strip-searching minors to find Advil.

For Thomas, though, that case didn't have anything to do with law enforcement. Thomas is of the position that a school acts in loco parentis, and thus a search by a principal (even one of a public school) should not be treated as an act of government, but an act of parental authority. So since the Fourth Amendment doesn't restrict parental searches of the minors in their care, it doesn't limit principals. Same thing on the First Amendment (like the Bong Hits 4 Jesus case) - if a parent can punish his child for an expression, then a school can, in Thomas's view. (Note this was the way US law generally handled school matters until the 1960s; Thomas didn't invent this view out of thin air.)

On the other hand, police sniffer dogs (or police using thermal imagers, per Kyllo) are government actors, and so the Constitution's restrictions on the government indisputably apply. On police matters, Thomas tends to be a bit more libertarian then Scalia.

Phinn:I have a hypothetical question for Fark's Armchair Constitutional Scholars: What if the dog was trained to smell explosives?

I could not be more opposed to the criminalization of recreational chemicals. But what if the "crime" in question was, you know, a real crime, like building explosive weapons? Would a simple door-to-door stroll through the suspected neighborhood with a bomb-sniffing dog be unconstitutional? What if it led to the detection of the tell-tale odors and the discovery of people who were in the process of preparing to murder innocent people by the thousands?

Gunpowder would presumably be one of the explosive substances the dog should alert to then, right? Nitrates, another?

You're committing the same logic error many here do: the details aren't the issue. Weed, explosives, KY jelly, whatever...the issue is that it's the government encroaching on your right to privacy. Period.

I mean, suppose we had a stat that said that most murders were committed behind closed doors...ergo, all homes must now be equipped with cameras so the government can detect when a domestic dispute could evolve into murder and dispatch appropriate police forces to the scene to prevent such. That's as laudable a goal as preventing your neighbor from brewing up some C4 or maybe something more effective like Sarin.

The price we pay to live in a free society is that there is the occasional asshole who abuses those freedoms. This is essentially the same issue we're having vis-a-vis the gun control debate. The issue isn't law abiding citizens having guns...it's the nutjobs having guns. We refuse to curtail the individual nutjobs (aka: involuntarily commit their crazy asses) so occasional massacres are the price we unfortunately pay to allow them their freedoms.

Silly Jesus:pedrop357: Silly Jesus: All the dog is doing is smelling something and essentially "saying", hey, I smell something. I don't see that as far off from a human officer seeing something and saying to his partner, "hey, look over there at that pot plant on the window sill."

Then the dog should have no problem explaining that on the stand.

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You're the one who wants the dog's "word" treated the same as the word of a human partner.

Silly Jesus:All the dog is doing is smelling somethingresponding to the cue from his trainer and essentially "saying", hey, I smell somethingI'd like my reward. I don't see that as far off from a human officer seeing not hearing something and saying to his partner,

Silly Jesus:Brainsick: Silly Jesus: Brainsick: Silly Jesus: it's pretty asinine in the sense that an officer (dog) who is legally allowed to be there is essentially being told that he can't use his senses in that location

Officer(dog)Officer/DogOfficer Dog

A Dog isn't an officer, can't be reasoned with, can't use arbitration for defense, can't join the union.(I know you get charged with assaulting an officer if you hurt one, but that's a loophole) A dog is not a person who has judgement and 'uses his senses'. A dog (and by extension, that dog's sensory organs) is a tool, is what I'm trying to say.

The officer's gun is a tool. As are his handcuffs. Should he remove those when he legally approaches a porch? The dog is the partner of the K-9 officer. I don't see it as unreasonable for it to travel with him as a human partner would.

The gun and cuffs are tools, but not detection devices; the dog is like an IR scanner or using his eyes to peer through the blinds. Those both require a warrant./Nice attempt at deflection//and you even have a sycophant!

I don't get why a nose on a dog is a super duper detection device all of a sudden. It's not enhanced at all. You really think that a dog nose is closer to an IR scanner than a human eye?

A dog's olfactory sense is (depending on breed) between 1,000 and 10,000 times more powerful than a human's. Privacy laws are based on privacy from other individuals. Anything in range of a human being's senses isn't private. Your pot plant in the front yard, it is reasonable a police officer could see that. The one in your basement, not so much. If discovery requires the use of something beyond the senses of the human officer, that is considered using tools or devices. This includes IR scanners, wiretaps, thermal imaging, and dog noses.

Silly Jesus:stonicus: Silly Jesus: Brainsick: Silly Jesus: it's pretty asinine in the sense that an officer (dog) who is legally allowed to be there is essentially being told that he can't use his senses in that location

Officer(dog)Officer/DogOfficer Dog

A Dog isn't an officer, can't be reasoned with, can't use arbitration for defense, can't join the union.(I know you get charged with assaulting an officer if you hurt one, but that's a loophole) A dog is not a person who has judgement and 'uses his senses'. A dog (and by extension, that dog's sensory organs) is a tool, is what I'm trying to say.

The officer's gun is a tool. As are his handcuffs. Should he remove those when he legally approaches a porch?The dog is the partner of the K-9 officer. I don't see it as unreasonable for it to travel with him as a human partner would.

He can take them with him, but he can't use them.

Yeah, that's what they are saying, which is silly. If the dog's nose is a tool then so are the officer's eyes. Maybe they should approach doors blindfolded.

Then the dog needs to the stand and explain how he/she knew that what they were smelling was marijuana, as well as explaining any official training they've received.

Silly Jesus:Brainsick: Silly Jesus: it's pretty asinine in the sense that an officer (dog) who is legally allowed to be there is essentially being told that he can't use his senses in that location

Officer(dog)Officer/DogOfficer Dog

A Dog isn't an officer, can't be reasoned with, can't use arbitration for defense, can't join the union.(I know you get charged with assaulting an officer if you hurt one, but that's a loophole) A dog is not a person who has judgement and 'uses his senses'. A dog (and by extension, that dog's sensory organs) is a tool, is what I'm trying to say.

The officer's gun is a tool. As are his handcuffs. Should he remove those when he legally approaches a porch?The dog is the partner of the K-9 officer. I don't see it as unreasonable for it to travel with him as a human partner would.

muck4doo:riverwalk barfly: muck4doo: Liberal or Conservative, this should be what you want. Less liberties for the police to go messing with people over stupid things.

Never allow the police into your house. They will always find something. Power grabs not social servants.

/not to mention the bud in the closet.

Whether you know it or not, you probably broke a bunch of laws today you never even heard of. Yes, they will always find something.

Don't get me wrong. I'm 48 years old. I won't lie - I've been in trouble with the law. no felonies, nothing that actually hurt someone else. In fact, probably the opposite. I've had peace officers put the cuffs on me and apologize. I've also been physically abused by police that felt it necessary to show that they were in control. Hence my distrust in the police. And if you have never had your hands cuffed behind your back and spent a night in jail, Don't tell me about your respect for the law.

That's what I'm wondering. TFA makes no mention of that. Drug dogs are VERY misused in this country, it would be nice to see them thrown out altogether except for those trained to sniff bombs at airports.

Lando Lincoln:muck4doo: This is great. We get the cops to stop abusing our rights over drugs, but they still will smack you hard for paid consensual sex. Face it. The cops are fed by the drug laws and benefit from confiscation. Take those away, and they will find somewhere else to line the trough. Oink oink! All hail the pigs we created.

If you have a problem with the laws that the law enforcers and enforcing, then complain about the laws they're enforcing and who put those laws there in the first place.

This is the thing. They're paid to keep putting more laws on the books. It's stupid. Show me one time ever where Congress met and took laws off the books. When your bread and butter is putting up more laws no matter, you can bet some stupid ones are going to show up. Throw in a gestapo police force that benefits from confiscating property, and you have what you see here today. I know liberals don't want this, and other conservatives I know as well as myself don't want this. I'm glad to see drug laws finally getting torn down, but when the pig has been feeding for so long, you just can't cut off his food without him going ballistic.

Scalia and Thomas don't care what the result is, as long as the logic feels sound to them. The minority in this case is more pragmatic, they care what the result is first. If they like the result, they like the logic.

In this case the pragmatists don't like the majority opinion because it lets a bad guy out of jail and potentially makes the drug war more difficult.

Lando Lincoln:jbc: Since when has Thomas ever voted against the wishes of his puppetmaster, Subby?

Yeah, no shiat. Thomas has a stamp that says "What Scalia said." Saves him time.

Says someone who knows nothing about the Supreme Court or the philosophies of the justices. Scalia and Thomas actually disagree quite often on issues of executive authority and federal vs. state powers. While both are narrow in their strict approach to interpreting the text of constitution Thomas is clearly more libertarian. See Gonzales v. Raich on whether Congress can ban marijuana.

Of course, it's much easier to just say the dumb black justice always votes with his white puppetmaster.